Bella Moyle

Beauty in Different Cultures

Preshil

Year 10

2,975 words

� 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS Investigating 3

Planing 4

Taking action 6

Reflecting 7

Appendix 9

Bibliography 19

� 2

INVESTIGATING

This reflective report documents my journey to achieving my goal, to make a book about cultural beauty and identity.

My goal was to research what beauty means in different cultures to produce a coffee table book of pictures and quotes, including the names of the country the person is from. Or to make a series of portrait paintings that show different cultures. This is for me to have a better understanding of what beauty means in different cultures and to share my discovery's. I decided to combine both goals. The book I produced has my own painted portraits and information of the different cultures I have chosen.

My goal became to research different cultures, to produce a book of information with paintings I paint and to share my discovery with others and have a deeper understanding myself. My goal would be challenging because I would be painting the portraits myself and I have never been comfortable sharing my artwork before. My personal interests helped me choose this goal because I enjoy painting and researching. I find the way people express themselves are very interesting, I wanted to develop an understanding of how others express themselves. My global context was: Personal and cultural expression, this is an excellent fit and relates to my goal as I am looking at different cultures and the ways they express beauty.

My prior knowledge to this topic was very minimal and I was curious to learn more. I do have a lot of knowledge about painting and research because of other school essays and research tasks. I knew that many people express themselves differently and some are traditions. For example I knew that in New Zealand, Maori women and men both sometimes have facial and body tattoos done in a different way how people normally get it done.

During my research I used websites, blogs, documentaries, government websites and also interviewed someone to find my information for the book.

I looked through many different websites for each culture, I chose information that was repeated and explained in multiple websites. I chose the information from the resources that where most relevant and tried not to get side tracked with other interesting information. I used some government websites, I also found blogs where people had researched the topics and I looked at the references that they used. In Appendices One it shows a part of an interview I did with a young muslim woman from when I was researching Pakistan, the Hijab and what it represents. In Appendices Two are notes, quotes and statistics from a documentary about body standards in western culture called 'Embrace'. These notes helped me get an understanding of how ridiculous body standards are and what people can put themselves through to feel accepted in western society.

� 3

PLANNING

When I made my criteria I knew I had the resources and was capable of achieving it. With my criteria I wanted to achieve a product that would be educational. Being a teenager myself I know how hard it is to accept yourself and I wanted this book to be inspirational. In the criteria I set for myself I was aiming to achieve the most rigorous outcome. The presentation of the product meets my rigorous standard, which is a book expressing different cultures and their ideas of beauty that I hope will be educational and enjoyable for those who are interested. It is presented as a published hardback book with nice glossy paper, including my own paintings, which was very time consuming. My criteria helped me when researching, to keep me on track and was a reminder of what I wanted and needed to achieve. (See Appendices Three).

When this personal project was first presented to me I was very stressed and worried. I had no idea what I was going to do and was worried that people would judge me because of my choices.Some of my first thoughts were focused around the refugees crisis, gay marriage rights, makeup/beauty or researching the history of a community. The idea of being judged on what I did really effected how long it took me to choose what I wanted to do. I thought of mixing two ideas, those being researching a community and beauty.

I made my goal, to research what beauty means in different cultures to produce a coffee table book of pictures and quotes, or to make a series of portrait paintings that show different cultures. This was for me to have a better understanding of what beauty means to different cultures and to share my discovery's. I made a list of all the possible countries I wanted to look into (shown in the Appendices Four).

In my first meeting with my supervisor, Kate, we discussed my goal and also if I wanted to look at both men and women or just women. By our next meeting I had decided to look at women, I felt bad because I did not want people to think that men do not have difficulty with expressing themselves but knew I had to limit it to something I felt I could achieve well in the timeframe. I decided which communities I was going to research and paint, ticking them off as I achieved both the painting and research.

I went to Jane, my out side of school art teacher, and told her about the IB project. I explained to her that I wanted to paint portraits and asked her for advice. I first tried doing a painting with acrylic paint, I then decided that it didn't look very 'natural' and looked to much like make-up so I decided to use watercolour paints instead. I am more confident in using watercolour, I also had supplies of watercolour paints and brushes at home already.

In our third meeting Kate and I developed my criteria. Over the Christmas holidays I did my first research task, for the Pakistan hijab chapter in my book. On the 11th December 2016, my mum, sister and I went to the Moroccan Soup Bar in Brunswick East, Melbourne. They host an occasion called 'Speed Date a Muslim', this is where you go and have afternoon tea and get to talk to muslim women in a safe environment that live in Melbourne. I was very nervous to do this because I did not want to accidentally offend anyone with my questions, also I did not know who I would be talking to and how open about their culture they would be. I interviewed a 22 year old women who had moved to Melbourne with her family as a young teenager, she had lived in Iraq and Syria and I asked her about the muslim culture and what the hijab represents. She was very nice and happy to answer all of my questions and gave me her Instagram account to follow, it turned out that she is a model for hijab's and that is where I got my picture from to paint. After my interview I continued researching and painted for my product. I watched a documentary called Embrace, it is about western beauty standards and the pressures women go through. I found a lot

� 4

of the statistics confronting and shocking but it was very good for me to get and idea of the physical standards we are surrounded by. I finished all my research on the 22nd April 2017. When I was researching I was also painting, I was working on more than one painting at once so that I could work on one when the other was drying and would rotate them. The paintings took longer than I expected because some of the paintings I did more than once because I was not happy with all of them. I found the western/american painting the most difficult because she had to look 'perfect' and I prefer paintings with little 'mistakes' because it can look more natural and interesting. I completed all my paintings for my product on the 7th June 2017. I wrote up a digital draft of my book on my computer and took pictures of my paintings and put them in as well, this was to get a clear idea of what I wanted my product to look like. I looked through other photo books to find a style I liked and for inspiration, for example the black background I chose for the main body of the book as inspired by a 'Women in Science' book. Once I finished my draft I looked into different online/self publishing websites, I found one I liked called Blurb. In Blurb you download a program called BookWrite, you then write up your book and send it into them and they print it for you. I decided to use this publishing site because it had good reviews and was very easy to use and was not too expensive. This was a new experience for me as I had never attempted something like this before and was very excited to see the final product.

I managed my time by making plans for myself. I would paint and research during any time I had in the holidays and weekends. For the 2017 Term One holiday I wrote a plan for myself, I had hoped to complete all the painting, research and find a publishing company. The goal I set for myself over this time period was too ambitious and unfortunately I did not finish all of them in my planed time period (this plan is shown in Appendices Five).

At the beginning of my project I really struggled with deciding what I was going to do, however once I had an idea of what wanted to achieve I was not sure where to start. I went to my supervisor and we discussed what I genders I might look at and if I wanted to research past and present beauty.

Once I had finished all my research I contemplated a bit on completing the last few paintings, I took some time out to reflect on what I had completed so far. I felt a pressure to get back to painting because it was haunting me and I had committed myself to finishing them early and would be disappointed if I didn't achieve my goal. My tactic/plan for completing my paintings was to do more than one at once, I could do one while others were drying. I struggled a lot with getting the paintings right and proportional, I went to my art teacher and she helped me with these difficulties and we disused what was working and what wasn't, and what to practice; for example the eyes and nose and also getting the watercolour to flow nicely. I often felt frustrated that my ideal wasn't realised when painting, I learned that my view of what the paintings would be was unrealistic for my current skill set. I found that when I had finished I was overly critical of my work but once I took some time out and saw them with fresh eyes I was happy with my work and tried to be proud of myself knowing I had tried my best.

� 5

TAKING ACTION

My product is a hardback book full of information about female beauty in other cultures, it includes painting done by me with watercolour paint to represent other cultures.

The product that I have made relates to my goal to discover more about the world and other peoples views. I now have more acceptance of global beauty. I feel my product reflects my original goal and the global context I set out to achieve. I am proud of the product I have made and feel if reflects my learning journey, I feel as though I have a new acceptance of how I view beauty and with less judgement towards other cultural expression. It has been a great experience and have realised that there is not one form of beauty.

My product connects to my global context: personal and cultural expression. This is because my product looks at how different cultures express their idea of what physical beauty is to them.

I chose to express my learning with a book because I feel like books and photos are a really good way to express ideas, you can look at them over and over again and can learn a lot from them. A book is also something that can be shared and other people can develop and take in ideas from them at their own pace. In Appendices Seven it shows a draft for my product. I looked at other photo books that I have enjoyed and developed ideas for the layout.

Throughout the process of my project I collaborated and communicated with my supervisor, family, friends and my art teacher. My supervisor helped me narrow down my goal and deciding what I wanted to do by suggesting that I could combine ideas. Finding the copyright for photos online could be difficult so why not paint pictures myself.

In Appendices Eight there is a photo of my first three meetings with my supervisor. It shows what we discussed and what I decided upon. In Appendices Nine in meeting one I write about how my supervisor asked if I wanted to do beauty in the past, present or even the future, also what genders I could do. I decided to do the current beauty of the different cultures and only look at women.

My product reflects a newly developed perspective I have for cultures that I first found confronting. I have found beauty in what I first though was strange. I learnt to see my own culture as being as confronting as others very different from my own, I felt myself question my own beliefs about beauty in my own life.

� 6

REFLECTION

The quality of my product is a combination of both substantial and rigorous set out in Appendix Three, due to its function and the changing direction of my finished product. In my criteria it lists a goal of watercolour paintings. I meet the rigorous standard for aesthetics with the publication of a hardback cover book produced through a professional printing company, with high quality paper. I painted the portraits, they are included in the published book using the BookWright program, (see Appendix Six). For the audience of the book I think I have attempted to achieve the rigorous standard and that people feel more accepting of themselves and others after reading it. For the size I don't meet any of my criteria because my book was 6 by 9 inches and I didn't have that on my criteria also its what I chose from the publishing website. At the beginning of my project I allowed myself a budget of $150 to spend on publishing the product. My total expense was $90.13, I purchased two hardback copies and a PDF version, it was less then I had expected because there was a sale/discount on when I ordered it.

By completing this project I have learned and discovered many different and interesting ideas around the subject of cultures and beauty. I feel as though I am now more openminded about what beauty globally and different ways it can be portrayed. I believe I have extended a deeper understanding into the global context of personal and cultural identity through acceptance of difference. I can transfer my new knowledge to my life by seeing different types of physical beauty with a deeper understanding of what it represents, also to have more respect and understanding for a persons choice of expression. By completing this project I know have a better understanding of why culture influences and expresses beauty. Appendices Ten shows a document that helped guide us in what we had completed and what I still needed to finish, it is a good reflection of where I was at and helped me to move forward.

Throughout this project I have developed many new skills. I feel I am a more openminded, caring, knowledgeable, reflective, have improved by communication skills and had opportunities to be a risk taker. I have become more openminded because I am more appreciative of others cultures and their ways of expression. I am now more a more compassionate person, I have a new respect for the choices other cultures make and have learnt to be less judgemental. I have developed new knowledge and understand for other communities and their ideas. I have also learnt how much work it takes to produce a book, it was more time consuming than I thought. I have become more reflective during this report and looking back on all of the things I have learned and achieved.

My communication skills have improved through meetings and discussions with my supervisor, personal interviews and conversations with others and thinking about an audience for my product. I have had moments of where I took risks, when considering using my own art work I struggled with the idea of being judged for my style. Interviewing a stranger about their culture and asking personal questions was challenging, I was nervous to do this and often thought of cancelling, after the meeting I felt like I had a personal connection with someone I thought would be very different from myself, I thought she was brave and beautiful both inside and out and I was very pleased to have met her.

I am pleased to have achieved my goals and feel proud of my work.

Over all I have learnt many things about myself and other cultures throughout this project. Having completed this project has changed my view of what I think beauty is and has also made

� 7

me more of an accepting person towards other cultures that I did not understand before. I am also proud of what I have achieved.

� 8

TABLE OF APPENDICESAppendix Shows evidence of Discussed in report section

1 Speed date a muslim interview A3

2 Notes,quotes and statistics of documentary 'Embrace'

A3

3 My criteria B1, D1

4 List of countries I wanted to reashurch and paint

B2

5 Holiday plan of what I wanted to achieve over that period of time

B3

6 Finished product C1

7 Book draft C2

8 The first three meetings with my supervisor

C2

9 first meeting with my supervisor-deciding on what time period I would investigate

C3

10 Reflecting D2

� 9

Appendix One

� 10

Appendix Two

� 11

Appendix Three

� 12

Appendix Four

� 13

Appendix Five

� 14

Appendix Six

� 15

Appendix Seven

� 16

Appendix Eight and Nine

� 17

Appendix Ten

� 18

BIBLEOGROPHY

(n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2017, from http://arabsinamerica.unc.edu/identity/veiling/hijab/http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-23/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-burka-niqab-or-hijab/5761510

Interview with Summay at the Moroccan soup bar - Speed date a muslim on the 11,December,2016.

http://www.zealandtattoo.co.nz

Duff,M.(2016, September 13) 'Its Transformative': Māon women talk about their scared chin tattoos. Retrieved January 11,2017

Maori women.(n.d.). Retrieved January 11,2017, from https://www.tumbler.com

Products.(n.d.).Retrieved February 5, 2017, from http://silkstone.com/About-Henna.html

Henna.(2017,February 6, 2017, from https://en.wkikpedia.org/wiki/Henna

Mehndi Portraits.(n.d.).Retrieved February 6, 2017, from https://au pinterest.com/davidanzola/mehndi=pertraits/?Ip=true

Toit, L.D. (2016,February 08). Traditional African Mursi Lip Plates. Retrieved April 04,2107,from https://tatring.com/pearcing-types/Have-Mursi-on-the-Lip-plate

post about lip plate on sleeping in Africa.(n.d.).Retrieved April 04,2017,from https://janajw13.wordpress.com/tag/lip-plate/

Lip plate.(2017,March 25). Retrieved April 04,2017,fromgttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lip-plate

Omg valley on offset.(n.d.). Retrieved April 04,2017,from https://www.offset.com/search/omo/valley

Post about body scarring on sleeps in Africa.(n.d.).Retrieved April 04,2017,from https://janjwl3.word press.com/tag/body-scaring

Africa.(n.d.).RetrievedApril 04,2017,from https://dh101.humanities.ucla.edu/DH101Fall12Lab5/exhibits/show/africa

Francis,L.J.(2015,September 03).10 Photos of the Ancient African Tradition of facial tattoos and scarification.Retrieved April11,2017,from https://blackgirllonghair.com/2015/09/10-photos-that-revisit-the-anchent-tradition-of-africa-facial-scarfication

Australia Aboriginal Art.(2014, May 20). Retrieved April 11,2017, from https://www.new-guinea-yribal-art.com/wp/index.php/2011/09/24/australian-aboriginal-art/

Paint used in Fine Art.(n.d.). RetrievedApril 11,2017,from https://www.aborigalartonline.com/methods/paint.php

� 19

Gallery, Z.B.(n.d.). Facts about Aboriginal Art-Japingka Gallery. Retrieved April 11,2017.from https://Japingkaaboriginalart.com/articals/facts-about-aboriginal-art/

Aboriginal Body art.(n.d.). Retrieved April 11,2017,from https://indiginousinstyle.com.au/aboriginal-art-history/aboriginal-body-art/

Aboriginal Body painting Art.(n.d.). Retrieved April 11,2017,from https://www. aboriginal l-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-libary/aboriginal-bady-painting-art

Australian Aboriginal portraits .(n.d.). Retrieved April 11,2017, from https://au.pinterest.com/moiraliantan/australian-abroiganal-portarits/?Ip=true

Why is Aboriginal body painting important?(n.d.).Retrieved April 11,2017,from https://www.personality-selected-abrigonal-art.com/body-painting.html

FMP-BURMA.(n.d.).Retrieved April 11,2017, from https://au.pinterest.com/polly0593/fmp-burma/?Ip=true

N.(2013, May 29). Why do these women stretch their necks? |National Geographic. Retrieved April 11,2017,from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFME1At3vml

Neck ring.(2017,March 29).Retrieved April 11,2017,from https://wikipedia.org.wiki/Neck_ring

Brest Reduction.(n.d.).Retrieved April 22,2017.from https://www.webmd.com/beauty/breast-reduction

How Plastic Surgery Can Help Save Lives.(2015, January 5). Retrieved April 22,2017, From https://www.plasticsurgeryhub.com.au/just-aesthetics-plastic-surgery-can-save-lives/

Women,C.S (n.d.). Brest Reduction Melboume-Dr Craig Rubinstein plastic surgeon. Retrieved April 22 ,2017,from https://plasticsurgions.com.au/breast-reduction-Melbournel?gclid=CLC3jint9mcFZsDKgodCd8DUg

Western.(n.d.). Retrieved 18, April, 2017, from https://beautyundefeted.weebley.com/western.html

Body&Beauty standards.(n.d.). Retrieved 18,2017,from https://www.bradley.edu/sites/bodyprojects/standerds

Rogers.S. (2011,July 22). US plastic surgery statistics:chins,buttocks and breasts up, ears down. Retrieved April 18,2017,from https://www.theguardian.com/news/clatblog/2011/jul/22/plastic-surgery-medicine

Embrace movie, retrieved 14,1,2017 from iTunes

� 20